Cambridge, UK, 31 May 2022: Transine Therapeutics (‘Transine’), a biotechnology company developing a novel class of therapeutic RNAs based on its pioneering SINEUP® platform technology, announces that it has successfully raised £4.6 million in additional seed funding. The financing was led by new investor Epidarex Capital with participation from existing investor the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF).
These new funds will enable Transine to further exploit its unique SINEUP® platform and accelerate the development of its product portfolio, building on recent advances with its lead programmes in Central Nervous System and Ophthalmology indications with key in vivo data expected this year.
Jan Thirkettle, CEO of Transine, commented: “We are very pleased to secure this further financing and welcome Epidarex as a new investor, strengthening our syndicate of international investors. Together with our successful seed round announced in June last year we have raised a total of £13.7m in seed funding, putting us in a strong position to rapidly progress our pipeline of novel mRNA-targeted therapeutics and further develop our platform. We have three active programmes and are continuing to assess opportunities to further leverage our unique SINEUP® platform, which we believe has broad utility across a range of diseases with significant unmet needs.”
Founded by Professor Piero Carninci and Professor Stefano Gustincich, pioneers in functional genomics and lncRNA, and based in Cambridge, UK, Transine has established its SINEUP® drug discovery platform and built a research team with significant expertise in RNA biology and drug development. The company is focussed on exploiting its platform to build a novel pipeline of products that bind mRNA to enhance translation of targeted proteins. This offers the potential for a safe and effective mechanism for upregulating protein expression with a superior level of control and specificity. Moreover, this approach may be applied across a wide range of disease applications offering multiple partnering options.
Mary Canning, Principal at Epidarex Capital, who has joined Transine’s Board following this financing, added: “We believe Transine is uniquely positioned to tackle serious diseases that can be addressed by physiological upregulation of endogenous proteins. With its strong leadership team, rapid early progress and highly promising pre-clinical proof of concept data, we see significant optionality for the company and an exciting future ahead.”
Christian Jung, Partner at DDF and Chairman of Transine’s Board, added: "DDF is delighted to welcome Epidarex to the syndicate and to continue working with Transine to realise the full potential of the Company’s transformational SINEUP technology platform. We strongly believe that Transine can be a game-changer in the way neurodegenerative and other diseases are being treated and that the SINEUP platform enables entirely novel therapeutic approaches that cannot be pursued with currently available technologies.”
